A Small New Dig
by JeremyX
Summary: Scarlett Penn moves back into her old house in the suburbs, but something new is there which has been there as long as she has, but she never realized. Connor Westinghouse and his father have lived under her floors since her childhood, but they have never been noticed until Connor's father left for the week. Discoveries are made, secrets are revealed, and a new friendship is born.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Here I am, with a new story! My tenth! WOOHOO!**

**P.S. I didn't invent the Borrowers, just the Borrower and Bean OCs. (Haha, Chick-Fil-A joke!)**

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A Small New Dig

Chapter 1

Perhaps you've noticed by now that sometimes things go missing. I'm not talking about your keys or your phone or other things like that, I'm talking about less noticeable things. Such examples would be like a paper clip you were going to hold some files with, a cracker that just fell under the couch, a pushpin from a bulletin board, a small cube of sugar from the sugar bowl, or even the remnants of a soap bar. Some of these things you never end up finding, but others do turn up in the places you would least expect, or sometimes exactly where you left them last.

Strange as it may sound, these items do not disappear. Rather, they are borrowed by someone else; a kind of person you never knew could exist. They live in your home, right under your nose, but you don't even know it. They are all around, and yet, they are never found. But that is how they want it to be. That is the way of the Borrowers: never let yourself be seen at all costs. If they were seen by us humans, then their lives would be in great danger. Think that this sounds completely outlandish? Then listen to my tale of the day that I met one of these people. That was a day that has changed my life forever.

[===]

I sighed heavily as I took out the last box from my station wagon and laid it next to the door of my new home. My grandmother had recently gone to her new heavenly home, and she had no more use of her simple yet spacious house in the suburbs of my home city. My parents had chipped in a little so that I could have some new appliances and furniture in my new home, which was conveniently located close to my university, from which I would soon be graduating with a degree in business education as well as a major in English.

"Just keep up my grades and I'm good for keeping my scholarship," I sighed to myself. "No pressure."

My family wasn't especially rich, but we weren't completely poor either. Thanks to my grades in high school, which my father and mother were both very proud of, I was able to apply for a high paying scholarship and get into a good college. This house, however, was of more sentimental value to me and to my family. This was not only my grandmother's house; it was also the home that my older brother and I grew up in.

My name is Scarlett Penn, and I've recently turned 18. My family consists of my mother, Audrey, my father, Robert, and my 23 year old brother, William. Before you say anything, he is in fact a history nut because he shares the name of the famous Quaker William Penn. None of us is sure if we're descended from him or not, but it would explain our deeply rooted English background, and the fact that we speak with an English accent even though our family has all been born in America since my great-grandfather.

Family matters aside, I unlocked and opened the door to the house, took a few boxes from the pile, and took them inside. I placed them in my new bedroom and went outside for the rest. As I did, I noticed a large blue moving truck drive up to the house and park on the curb. Smiling, I went up to the truck as men came from the truck and opened the rear door. More men emerged, and they all began taking large boxes out from the inside of the truck, placing them on dollies, and wheeling them towards the house. Two of the boxes were kind of large, one was very tall, and another was very wide.

"Be extremely careful with those wares, boys," the man in charge said to the workers. "They are very, very expensive, and it may come out of your check if any of it is damaged."

"I don't think you don't need to go that far, sir," I said as I approached him.

"True, but I was only making a point," he replied. "It's part of our policy to replace damaged wares, if they were damaged in the moving or in the handling."

"Well, thank you anyway," I said.

"My pleasure, ma'am," he smiled back, giving a two fingered salute.

I went back to my pile of boxes, picked up two more large ones, and took them inside. By the time I had finished with my boxes, the movers had finished loading, and had set up my new dishwasher, washing machine, clothes dryer, couch, and refrigerator. I signed their company's delivery contract, thanked the men deeply, and shut myself inside of my home to unpack my belongings.

I kept most of the furniture that was already in the house because they were very well made and they held a lot of sentimental value to me since they belonged to my grandmother. In a moment, I had set up everything in my bedroom, including my new sheets, and my book collection. Fantasy, mystery, horror, romance, science fiction, I had it all on my shelf. I took another look at my bookshelf, and noticed that there was something that I had not noticed before. On the side of the bookcase, there were tiny, almost undetectable indents. The part about that which was exceptionally bizarre was that they were arranged in a pattern which was almost like almost like they were made for climbing a rock wall.

"That's strange," I said to myself, but I shook it off as I took out my iPod from my purse and plugged my earbuds into it, cycling to a classical playlist as I dozed off on my new bed for a moment.

[===]

The loud sounds above my head did little to break my concentration as I read the words of a book that were displayed on an electronic device, which was as tall as me. It was one of those machines that the beans called it an iPod, but it was different from others, since it had a screen which reacted to touch. Thankfully, it was sensitive enough to react to my touch, though I had to be rather firm when using it. My Aunt Josephina borrowed it from a trash can nearby his house, which was on the other side of the city. It surprised me on why the beans would throw away a perfectly good piece of technology like this, until I realized that the battery was broken. My uncle was able to fix it for my birthday, however, and I was very thankful to him for it. I had always wanted to read, and I found the device to be full of books from classic human literature.

My name is Connor Westinghouse, and I am a Borrower. My father, Henry, and I have lived in this house for as long as I can remember. According to my parents, I was born in this house's very walls. I've been here for all of the twenty years of my life, and I couldn't imagine any life beyond it. My mother's relatives occasionally visited, and I was always happy when they did. Aunt Josephina would always show off her new and exquisite borrowings, but not as flashily or as flamboyantly as Aunt Helga would. Uncle Seth was always tinkering with human devices, and was always quick to fix our broken devices that we had built or borrowed.

Suddenly, as I was reminiscing on these thoughts, my father burst through the front door of our home. I quickly switched off the device and ran from my room. When I got to the living room, I looked at my father. He looked like he was doubled over in exhaustion, probably from running too much, which did not suit him in his old age. However, he was not panting heavily. In fact, he looked like he had just seen a ghost. He regained his composure and sat down on my bed.

"What's wrong, dad?" I asked him, sitting down in a chair to face him.

"There's a new human bean in the house," he said gravely. "To be fair, it's an old new bean."

"What do you mean, Dad?" I asked, curiously. I was very well aware of the threat these gigantic beings posed to us Borrowers, but I couldn't help but be confused by his words.

"The old woman's granddaughter had grown up," he replied, "and since her grandmother has passed away, she now owns this house."

"Is that good or bad?" I asked. Even though I was grown up and well versed in our ways, I was still unsure of the ways of these human beans.

"It is neither good nor bad for now," he answered. "It just means that we need to be more careful. Also, I don't want you going borrowing until after nightfall."

"Back to the old grind, then," I grinned, flexing my arms.

"I'll also be out of the house for a week starting early tomorrow morning, before sunrise," he said.

"What?" I gasped. "Why?"

"Your grandmother is sick," he replied. "I've acquired the medicine that she needs, but I need to deliver it quickly. I'll also have to be by her side for a while, so you're going to be on your own for a while. You'll need to stay in the house while I'm gone and do not go out on borrowing until I've returned."

"Why not?" I protested. "I'm old enough to do my own borrowing!"

"You're still young and inexperienced," he said sternly, "especially when it comes to dealing with human beans. I know much more about dealing with those… creatures than you do."

"But I'm stealthy enough!" I insisted. "I'm more than prepared for dealing with those human beans!"

"But you're not experienced enough with this kind of risky borrowing," he retorted.

"It's just one bean!" I shouted. "It's been just that one old bean in this house for ten years! Even though she's gone, it's still just that one girl! And I bet she's younger than me!"

"Just barely!" he replied, his own tone rising in anger. "Did I dare to venture out too much when she and her brother lived here?"

"Uh," I started, not liking where this was going.

"NO!" he yelled. "And I will not have you endangering our home for the sake of your nonsensical ideas and your misplaced curiosity! As the beans often say, 'curiosity killed the cat', or in this case, killed the Borrower. You know that those… monsters will not hesitate to do harm to any Borrower that they see."

I had a fearful look in my eye as he said this, and my father, upon noticing it, softened his tone.

"I'm sorry for the outburst, son," he said. "I'm only concerned for your safety. And… I don't want what happened to your mother to happen to you."

"I know, dad," I said, grimacing at the memory. "I'm sorry for being so stupid myself."

"It's all right," he said. "You be good and take care of yourself, okay?"

"I will, dad," I said, hugging him as I spoke. He wrapped his strong arms around me, and held me tight.

"You are all that I've got left here, son," he said with a quivering voice. "I love you with all my heart and I want the very best for you."

"I love you too, dad," I said.

After a while, we broke away from our embrace and I went into the kitchen. "How about I fix us up some dinner, just like Mom taught me?"

"That sounds great," he said, smiling. "That will suit me well physically and mentally before I start out on the road."

I smiled and headed to the cupboards to get our cooking utensils. Mom had borrowed them from a dollhouse before I was born, and they were very well kept. She said that the house was not used, and was sold a few days after she had borrowed the utensils, along with most of the furniture. Dad said that he initially protested, but when no beans were aware of this, he was okay with it. He now treasures the furniture as some of his most prized possessions.

When I was ten, my mother had been seen by the son of the old woman who had lived here. The day after she broke the news to me and my father, she had utterly vanished from her bed. Not a trace of her was found throughout our house or in the outside world. My father feared the worst, but I held to a feeble hope that she was somewhere out there, still alive, but I feared that she was all alone. I miss her every day, and so does my dad.

That day is half of the reason he hates beans so much. The other reason is more tragic on his behalf. His father was seen by a young man of a bean. He said to me and my mom that the day he learned of that was the worst day of his life, because when they moved away, they were attacked by the family's new cat. While he managed to save Dad and Grandma Westinghouse, he was eaten alive by the large ginger beast. That's the main reason why I hate cats. I lost my grandfather before I even met him. But that is the dangers that every Borrower must face every day.

I was brooding on these thoughts as I brewed some soup, but I shook them off as I stirred the vegetable bits into the broth, adding a few cracker crumbs every few seconds.

"How early are you leaving tomorrow," I asked from the kitchen.

"Before about 5:00 AM, by human timing," he replied.

"When do you think that you will be back?" I asked, unsure if I was going to like the answer.

"It may be a week or more," he said, "depending on her condition."

"I'll wait for you no matter how long," I said, "but I'll miss you terribly."

"So will I, son," he said softly and sadly. "So will I."

I then took two large plastic bowls from a cabinet, scooped some soup into each one, and sat down at the table across from my dad. We smiled, bowed our heads, and then began eating the soup.

"Just how Audrey used to do it," Dad smiled. "You've learned well, my boy."

"I had the best cooking teacher a guy could have," I smiled back, and continued eating.

[===]

After what seemed like a few minutes of listening to my music, when it was actually two hours, I opened my eyes and looked out of the window to find that the sun was setting.

"Huh," I said. "It's a lot later than I thought it was." I then looked to my desk. "I'd better get my gear set up before it gets too late."

I got out of my bed, picked one of my boxes off of the floor, and then set it on my bed. I opened it, took out my desktop computer, and then took out all of the other things that I had to work with it: wireless speakers, a wireless keyboard, a wireless mouse, my wireless internet router, and a widescreen LCD monitor with a built in webcam in the top bar. After fumbling around with peeling the statically charged packing materials from the components, undoing the rubber bands, and untangling the electric cords, I cleared off my desk so that I had enough room to set up the whole system on there. Once I did so, I turned on my computer and started writing.

Writing is and has always been a hobby of mine, ever since I was just a little girl. My father's mother was a retired English teacher, and she had taught me all that I knew about English growing up. My family didn't have a lot of money back then, so my parents schooled me until I was able to get a high school scholarship when I won the city spelling bee when I was thirteen. I had always loved reading books, and I wanted to become a writer myself one day. I won't say that I want to be famous, but I'd like to have some people read my books, if I ever made anything worth publishing.

This brings me to a problem with me and these kinds of long term projects. I'd always start out feeling good and ready to tackle anything, but as the road got longer and harder, I'd almost always give up or come close to it. But when I won the spelling bee, that's when I vowed to always persevere and keep on aiming for higher goals.

As I pondered these thoughts and memories, I looked at my computer screen and had realized that I had just written a full thousand words in under a half hour.

"That should show the power of a creative and determined mind," I said to myself.

As I said this, my stomach growled loudly. I then looked at the clock, noticed the time, and realized the reason for this.

"Good grief, it's already 8 PM? No wonder my stomach's restless now." I then went into the kitchen, and looked at the cabinets. "I don't feel like doing anything major, so I guess I'll just have the usual." I pulled out a cup of instant ramen noodles, turned on my electric kettle, and waited about a few minutes before the steel machine started rumbling and hissing. I then peeled back the wrapper for the noodles cup, opened the lid, and poured some of the hot water into the cup, closing the lid. I waited another two minutes, stirred the ramen, and dug into the chicken flavored goodness with my plastic chopsticks.

After I finished my dinner, I threw away the cup, washed the chopsticks, and washed myself in the new bathroom. I then went into my bedroom, put on my pajamas, and crawled into my comfy new bed, sighing contentedly. Today was a good day, and I couldn't wait until tomorrow. I had no idea why, but I felt that something really important was going to happen, and it was going to change my life forever.

[===]

That night, I lay in my bed, but nowhere close to falling asleep. I had been tossing and turning for about thirty minutes, trying to process all of what was happening. On one hand, I had the house all to myself, along with all of the borrowings I could find in it. On the other hand, my dad was going to be gone for a long, undetermined amount of time, leaving me with a bean that I had to avoid every day in my early childhood. I was very confused, and though I wouldn't admit it to my father, I was very scared.

I then looked at my mirror, and I saw a picture of my mother. It was one that I had taken with a human's digital camera, and Uncle Seth was kind enough to have it printed out. I smiled at it, and the memories of my mother putting me to sleep came back to me as vivid as if it had happened last night. She would always tell me stories and sing to me, and I imagined she was doing that now. After a while, I smiled and sighed contentedly, and fell fast asleep.

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**A/N: I posted this, along with all of my stories, on deviantART, if you prefer to read them there while browsing my art collection.**

**This is a sweet and sour start, no? I hope you enjoy it until the end!**

**UPDATE: 6/18/2013 - I made this a little longer since I started Chapter 2 with something that I thought should have been in this, and here it is. I kept it within the switching POVs, and I'm working hard on Chapter 2 as I type this.**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I LIVE! After two whole weeks without an update to speak of, I have returned at last! The ending of Little Angel of Mine was so that I could concentrate on new fanfics like these! this is a bit longer than my first chapter, so you have more to look forward to from now on! I hope you enjoy!  
**

**I don't own the Borrowers, or else I'd finally be rich enough to get my license and pay off my student loans.**

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Chapter 2

I awoke to the light sifting through the window of my room to the backyard of the house. I groaned weakly before I rolled out of bed and went into the kitchen. As I became more awake, I noticed that my father wasn't at the table. I looked around the house, but he really was nowhere to be seen.

"Guess he really is gone," I said to myself, "and who knows when he'll be back."

While I pondered on this, I looked out the window to gaze at the expansive and well kept backyard. As I did, I then wondered why I woke up to this instead of my new alarm clock. I went back to my room, and noticed that the mini radio clock, which stood next to my bed, was not even showing the time. I opened the back of the device, and I took out the long cylindrical battery, which was about as long as my leg. I then looked at it curiously and gave a tentative lick to the side that was marked with a plus sign.

"Huh," I smirked, smacking my lips. "I guess the battery's dead."

In case you were wondering, I had just used an old bean trick to test for the charge held in a battery. If the battery tip tasted awful, then it held a strong charge. If the tip had no taste at all, it held little to no charge at all. Instead of putting it somewhere else, I slipped the dead battery down a chute which lead to the kitchen trash can. I knew well enough about batteries to be extremely careful with them, even dead ones, because they can be dangerous if not handled correctly. I then looked around in my room for a while, trying to find a replacement battery, but my search had yielded no result.

"I guess it's time for some borrowing," I said, rubbing my hands together.

I downed some of the leftover soup from last night, looked inside my borrowing bag to make sure that I had everything that I needed, and I set out towards the maze of borrower tunnels connecting our house to all sorts of places throughout the bean's house. There were ladders and climbing ropes leading up to the higher levels and cabinets, and there were slides and ramps leading down to the floor, in case we needed a quick escape. The only place the network did not lead to was the attic, but no one ever goes in there, not even the beans themselves.

I grabbed a rope and used a crank to bring it down to my level. I grabbed the rope with one hand, and let go of the crank with the other. As soon as I did so, the rope shot me up to the higher level of the house. I followed the tunnels that led to the kitchen, where the batteries were held, and I noticed that I was passing by the master bedroom. I couldn't help but sneak a peek inside to see who the new bean was, and I was startled by what I saw.

The girl who was sleeping in the bed was almost the same age as me, give or take a year or two. Her face was the same as the girl who lived here all those years ago, and the memories of my childhood here were brought back to me as vivid as if they had just happened yesterday. I moved some of my short dark brown hair from out of my dark brown eyes to get a better look. Her long ginger hair was in a mess as she almost noiselessly breathed in and out. Just then, she began to stir, and her eyelids slowly opened, revealing almost startling clear blue eyes.

_Whoa, _I thought to myself._ The little bean girl did grow up after all._

Just then, she started to move. She rose from her bed and began to yawn and stretch. I took this as my cue to leave, having no wish to be seen anytime soon, and I started rushing down the tunnels to the kitchen cabinets. After a few minutes, I reached the borrower's door to the utility cabinet, and opened it. I was greeted with a deep darkness, which meant that the true door to the cabinet, the ones that the beans used, was closed. Relieved at this, but frustrated that there was no light, I resumed my search.

I darted around the dark space, trying to find what I was looking for. I tried to be as silent as I could, so that I wouldn't cause a noise which would make the girl investigate in to what made the noise, or in this case, _who_ made the noise. As I stumbled around, trying my hardest to not trip over anything or mess up something, I cursed myself for not bringing my lantern. I then noticed a large box, with a black and brown label, which showed at least a dozen similarly colored cylinders behind a case of plastic.

_The box of batteries! I knew I'd find it in here somewhere!_

Now came the difficult part: getting one out of the box. I slowly tipped the box over to see a pull back cover on the back side of it. I peeled back the paper seal as hard but as quietly as I could, and little by little, the seal came undone. When I had enough room, I slipped one of the batteries out of the case, and stood the box back right side up again. I checked the side of the battery to make sure it was the right kind. Sure enough, three small capital A's lined the copper top of the battery.

"A good hunting," I said to myself in a faux British accent, "now for home again."

Just then, I heard a very loud rumbling noise and felt like the ground shook. Scared that I was about to be seen, I made a mad dash for the door, slipped through the doorframe, slammed it behind me, and stopped to catch my breath. I then heard another bang and felt another rumble, but this noise sounded more like a crack or a bang than a rumble. Speaking of rumbling, the whole house shook again, but just a bit more harshly. As I tried to maintain my balance, I then heard a repetitive noise that made me realize what was going on.

"It's just starting to rain," I said, regaining my composure. "It's awful loud for a rainstorm that's just now started, though."

I then quickly but carefully made my way back to the house. Once I got in, I locked the door behind me and went into my room to install the battery. The noise of the rain hitting the side of the house was louder now, since our house was built near one of the storm drains. Luckily for us, the bean's house was built on a smooth hill, and our house was slightly higher up in the walls than the storm drain. As a matter of fact, our house was under the floorboards of the closet of the girl that lived here now. I opened the radio, put in the battery, turned on the device, and the radio crackled to life.

"…so once again, the Shasta county area is going to be subject to massive thunderstorms and possible flooding on and off all this week," a loud rushed voice came from it, "so be sure to stay careful on the road, and be secure in your homes. We'll be right back after this break with more on the…" Getting the message, I turned off the radio.

"Well, so much for a nice, relaxing day outside," I grumbled. "Now what do I do for the rest of the day?"

I sighed and plopped down in my bean bag chair, which was an actual bean bag, in case any of you were wondering. It came from a game that I've heard beans call 'hacky sack', though I can't say that I've ever seen any beans actually play it before. My dad says he did see young beans play it all the time when he was a kid, but they all just stopped playing it. I looked out the window and watched the rain fall as I pondered these thoughts, along with others concerning today and the days to come, now that my dad was currently absent.

Just then, as I thought on these thoughts, a new thought occurred to me. This thought was unlike anything I had ever thought in all of my twenty years. It was crazy, stupid, and could result in something unimaginably horrible for me and even my dad when he came back. However, I felt that it was something that I just had to do. Call it fate, call it instinct, call it intuition, or even call it insanity, but I felt somewhere deep inside of me was a sense of curiosity that would not be satisfied until I had done what I had to do to slake its thirst.

"Dad's so going to kill me for this," I said to myself, "and I'm probably going to regret this."

As I said this, I left my house and went along the tunnels towards the other rooms in the house. Even though I had traveled these tunnels countless times very quickly, it seemed like this journey had lasted for several hours when it was only a few minutes. After a while, I arrived at my first destination, which was the kitchen. I peeked in through a hole under one of the cabinets that hung over the sink, and I saw that I was facing the kitchen table.

The girl was at the table, reading the newspaper while drinking a cup of some dark liquid which I presumed was the substance that humans called coffee. Apparently, whatever the ingredients that went into it caused beans to become more alert, if for a moment. I always figured that it was so that they could normally keep themselves awake easier. I looked at her again, and noticed that her breakfast consisted of a banana, a small glass of milk, and something that appeared to be eggs, sausage, peppers, onions, mushrooms, and other assorted foods wrapped up in a flat, bread-like substance.

"That must be one of those new 'breakfast wraps' that my dad's been telling me about," I said to myself. "They do sound sort of interesting."

Just then, she grabbed her throat and started coughing violently. I tensed at this, afraid that something was wrong with her, but then she stopped coughing and took a sip of milk. I breathed a silent sigh of relief at this, and turned back to watching her.

"Well, that went down the wrong pipe," I heard her say. "Lesson learned: never do more than one thing when you're half awake." I then took notice of her taking notice of the window." Man, it's pouring out there. I'm sure as heck glad I got moved in before this deluge happened."

With that, she finished her bizarrely made meal, and took her plate to the sink. I got away from the hole, so that she couldn't see me, and hid behind the wall. I could soon hear the loud sound of rushing water hitting glass, which stopped after a few seconds. I then heard loud shuffling noises, and peeking out from my hole, I noticed that she was leaving the kitchen. Retreating back through the tunnels, I went along the inside of the walls, listening for her movement to ensure that I wasn't far behind her. After what seemed like a moment or two when it was really thirteen minutes, the noises stopped. I then made my way to the nearest borrowing hole, and peeked out from behind it.

I looked out into a bedroom, and I saw that I was standing on a windowsill and facing a large bookcase. I then noticed there were marks on the side of the bookcase and that they were placed methodically and were all too intricate to have been made by a bean. What was most interesting about them was that it looked like they were made for a Borrower to climb on.

"That's interesting," I said to myself.

I then looked around at the room I was in, and noticed that it was the very same room that I had passed by not too long ago. I noticed there were a bunch of scrolls on the walls with characters from various anime shows, as well as a small bedroom mirror over a writing desk, with an electric lamp on it. Directly across from me, however, was a large bed with thin blue sheets draped over it. Resting on the bed, calmly reading a book while listening to a music player not unlike mine, was the human girl.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I then crept out from the hole in the windowsill, climbed down the bookcase, and dashed inside the bookcase and hid behind some of the books. My heart was pounding in my chest and my insides were about to explode from the rush of adrenaline, but I kept my cool and made myself calm. Peeking out from my new hiding spot, I saw her rise from her bed and move to her writing desk.

She pulled out a piece of paper, but didn't take a pencil out as I thought that she would. Instead, she took out a strange looking pen and started scribbling at first, but then started making long lines that crossed each other and went in ways that I had never seen before. I stared at her for a long time, completely entranced at her activity, even if I had no clue as to what it was. After about ten minutes, she stopped what she was doing, and dropped the pen onto the desk. She then took the paper in her hands, and I saw that she had drawn a picture.

The paper showed a rough black-and-white sketch of her standing at the outside of the house. She was staring off into the distance, her hair blowing gently in the wind, with a smile on her face. The way that she drew herself and the house was unlike anything I'd ever seen. She didn't draw herself as a cartoon, nor did she draw herself realistically either. It was a sort of style that was totally new to me. Her eyes were wide and round, and her hair was wild and had many lines and points to it.

While I thought of this, I walked backwards, and nearly tripped over something. Looking down, I saw it was a black pencil with the words 2B branded on it. I looked back up at the girl, and noticed that she was crawling on the ground, on her hands and knees, looking for something. Tensing up, I gasped and hid quickly behind one of the bedposts.

"Where did that stupid pencil go?" she asked herself as she prodded around her wooden floor. "I know that dang 2B couldn't have gotten far. It was there when I set up my drawing desk, so where is it now?"

"So this is one of the girl's drawing pencils," I said to myself, while looking at the pencil.

Just then, I felt something crept up behind me. Most of the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I slowly turned around to find the source of my new anxiety. As I moved, I came face to face with a huge cockroach, easily half my size. I don't mind to mention this, but ever since I was a little kid, I've been mortally terrified of most bugs, primarily ones that could hurt me, like bees, hornets, or wasps. There was one notable exception, however, and that was cockroaches. One time when I was kind of young, which was on another rainy day, a cockroach crept into my room in the night while I was sleeping and decided to nest in my bed. And on me, no less. Ever since, I've been mortally terrified of cockroaches.

When that new bug moved its antennae in my face, I was horrified to see a large hairy spider crawling towards me as well. When those two came close to me, I did the first thing that came to mind.

"EEEEAAAAAUGHHHHH!"

I bolted from my hiding spot like a maniac, screaming at the top of my lungs. As I looked back, I saw that the insect and arachnid followed me in hot pursuit. Either they smelled some food from me, I was in one of their nests, or they thought that I was prey. Cal me paranoid, but I felt that the latter was the more likely explanation. But I had no time to think about that. In fact, I had no time to think at all, as I looked forward and, all too late, saw myself heading for the wall of the bookcase. Right as I noticed this, I couldn't stop myself form running, and I smacked right into the wall, my head hitting the wood surface very hard. I then slumped to the ground, and I knew no more.

[===]

This morning was just one weird thing after another for me. First off, I wake up to the fact that it was raining hard after being completely dry and with few clouds for the past two days. Secondly, I suddenly choked on the first few bites of one of my new microwaveable breakfast burritos. Thirdly, I lose my brand new 2B sketch pencil and end up realizing it after I finish a rough pencil of my latest work. Finally, as I looked for my pencil, I heard a scream from under my bed, and noticed something rushing out from under my bed, followed by a soft thud, as if something struck hard wood. I then looked back at my bed, and noticed that this new thing was running away from a large spider and an equally large cockroach.

"What the heck?" I said, but upon seeing the creepy crawlies that appeared on the scene, I gasped.

"Yikes!" I shouted, and pulled on my robe.

I grabbed one of my pairs of sneakers from across the room, and brought them down on the spider and the roach. A loud squelching noise emitted from the ground, and the insides of the little monsters flew out from all directions, though not far enough o make a fuss. I then darted into my bedroom bathroom, grabbed at least a yard of toilet paper, and went to the scene of the killing. I then pinched the remains of the dead pests into the folds of the tissue, and flushed them down the toilet. After wiping up the space with a wet paper towel and drying it with a regular towel, I washed my hands very quickly and very thoroughly to get the mess off of my hands.

"Now what was that other thing?" I asked myself.

As I looked around, I noticed something small was near my bookcase. As I knelt down to look, I realized that it was a person, and a young man, though he was probably no more than four inches tall. His eyes were closed, and his dark hair was in a mess. He wore a simple white t-shirt with a dark red vest over it and faded blue jeans. I thought that either he had taken those clothes from a premium fashion doll, or he had made them himself.

"Wait, how could he even do that?" I asked myself. "Come to think of it, how does 'he' even exist? What in the world is he?"

Taking another look, I saw that he had a relatively large red spot on his forehead.

"He must have hit his head on the bookcase," I said, rubbing my chin. "Whatever he is, I'd better help him."

Sighing heavily, I reached down and very carefully pinched the small person's shirt with my index finger and thumb, and lifted him up an inch or so. I then slid my other hand underneath the boy's tiny body, and slowly dropped him onto the center of my palm. With him secure in my hand, I slowly unfolded my legs and brought him to my large desk. I took a pair of socks from my open sock drawer, placed him on top of them, and pondered on how to approach the situation next.

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**A/N: Interaction at last! What will happen next? Stay tuned and find out!**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I'm sorry that I left this on a cliffhanger and haven't updated this in a while, but things have been hectic here. Anyways, here we are with Chapter 3 at last!**

**Disclaimer; I don't own the Borrowers, just the OC's.**

* * *

Chapter 3

I wearily tried to move, only to find that my body had gone completely numb. I tried to get something, anything, to move, but nothing happened. After a while, the feeling returned to my arms, and it was then that I felt a searing pain coming from my forehead. I reached up and rubbed it, trying to relieve the pain. As I stirred, I tried to piece together what happened. I remembered that I was running away from a huge roach and an equally huge spider, but I couldn't remember much after that. I struggled to get up, but my legs wouldn't move enough to help me up. After some effort, I blinked my eyes open and tried to get a good look around me. I knew that I was on something solid, but I had no idea where I was. Just as I finally got to my feet, I heard a loud thumping noise from somewhere.

"Oh, thank goodness you're all right! I wasn't sure if you were okay, and I was a little worried."

The sheer volume of this voice was enough to knock me off my feet, and I collapsed onto the hard wood surface of whatever this was. I held my hands over my ears, trying to get them to stop ringing. Suddenly, I realized what I was standing on: the human girl's writing desk. As I got to my feet again, though more wearily this time, I dared to look up and found myself face to face with a borrower's worst nightmare come true: the face of a human bean.

"You are okay, right?" she asked me.

I was much too scared to even move, much less think of a reply. My eyes widened with fear and my heart pounded in my chest while my lungs got a major workout with my gasps of fright. As soon as I could get my legs to work, I made a beeline for the edge of the desk closest to the bed, and prepared to jump off the desk.

"Hey, hold on!" the girl called to me. "Please don't jump! You could get hurt!"

I looked back and she began to reach out to me.

"Keep away from me!" I screamed, and then darted away to another side of the table. Spying her pencil case, I jumped inside and closed it behind me. _Well, that was stupid,_ I thought. _She could just open it up and grab me, you idiot! YOU IDIOT! How could I let this happen? Years of practice and training wasted in the blink of an eye! Oh, man, I don't want to die! Not now! What'll Dad think if he finds out about this?_

"Will you please come out?" I could hear the girl ask. "It's okay, I won't hurt you."

"Yeah, right," I quietly said to myself, shaking with fear and a slight hint of anger.

"I had no idea you could speak," she said. "That's amazing. I-I'm sorry if I scared you, but I've never seen anything like you before in my entire life. You hit your head when those creepy crawlies came after you. I took care of them, so you're safe now."

"What's to keep you from doing to me what you did to them?" I asked, not realizing that I had spoken out loud.

"What was that?" she asked.

Angry now, I opened the box and glared at her. "I said, what's to keep you from doing to me what you did to them?"

"What?" she looked repulsed. Scared that I had angered her, I hid back in the box. As I did, she spoke again. "It's okay; it's just that what you said just took me by surprise. I'm telling you now that I won't hurt you. I have no reason to do anything like that to you."

I was surprised. There was a clear conviction in her voice that, even in my mix of emotions, I could detect. Slowly, I opened the box again and peeked out of it. "Are you serious?"

"I promise," she nodded.

"So you're really not going to trap me or keep me as a pet?" I asked.

"That's kind of sick, considering you're a human-like being," she replied, "so no, I won't do any of that."

I frowned and backed into the box. "And why should I trust what you have to say?" I asked.

She stared at me for a while, and then lowered her head. "Well, I did save you, you know."

"Other than that," I said. "You could just have saved me from them so you could finish me off yourself."

"Well, by that logic, I guess you can't trust me," she shrugged, "but you should know that I mean what I say. I have no reason or will at all to hurt you. I just want to help you. Maybe even get a conversation started between us."

"Like what kind of conversation?" I asked, climbing out of the box, a bit braver now.

"Well, for starters," she began, "I'd like to know your name."

"It's Connor," I replied. "Connor Westinghouse."

"Like the electric company?" she asked, raising her eyebrow.

"My family's lived in an old, worn out Westinghouse circuit breaker box in this house for years, if you must know," I replied. I was unsure if I should have revealed that information, but I felt like I could trust her. "What about you? What's your name?"

"My name's Scarlett Penn," she said. "We've had that name for years, ever since my great-great-great-grandfather."

"That's quite a long family line," I said, rubbing my chin. "Are you English? Because you sound English."

"My great-great-grandfather was born in Wales, yes," she replied. "He then moved to the States, and we've been born and raised here ever since."

"That's interesting," I said.

"What about you?" she asked. "What kind of person are you? I've never seen a person as small as you before in my life."

"Well, you're kind of not supposed to," I said.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well," I replied, "if you must know, I am a Borrower."

"Borrower?"

"We borrow things from you human beans," I explained, "things that you never miss and that we need to survive. Food scraps, soap, sugar, electricity, gas, and more. You name it, a Borrower has borrowed it at least once."

"That's remarkable," she said, looking at me with an expression of awe and mystery. "How long have you been doing this?"

"For as long as we've been around," I replied. "We stay out of sight because if human beans see us, then they'll bring about a Borrower's end."

"A Borrower's end?" she gasped. "You don't mean like killing them, do you?"

"I do, actually," I replied. "You human beans aren't all that understanding of our ways. And I don't mean to be rude, but your kind is the biggest danger that Borrowers ever have faced."

"Really?" she asked. "You're not afraid of cats or wolves or birds or anything else that's bigger than you and can hurt you?"

"Oh no," I shook my head, "we're scared of them, all right, but you beans pose a bigger threat than they do. They're just acting as nature dictates. You act on a higher intelligence, and that is what we are truly threatened by. You're just as smart as we are."

"Oh man," she said, leaning back in her chair and holding her head in her hand. "I had no idea at all."

"For some cases with you beans, it's better that way," I said.

"What do you mean, beans?" she asked. "Do we look like beans to you?"

"Of course you do," I said, cocking my brow. "That's what you are. You're human beans."

"Um, I think you mean human beings," she said. "You must obviously be confused."

"No, we've been calling your kind that since the beginning," I said. "I think we'd know by now if we were wrong about your names."

"Ok, fine, I won't argue," Scarlet held her hands up in a mock surrender.

I chuckled. This was something I had never imagined in all of my life. I was having a conversation with a human bean, and we were talking like we had been friends for years. Maybe it was just the thing with meeting new people, or maybe it was some kind of magic at work. But whatever it was, I liked it.

"Speaking of others, are there any other Borrowers living with you?"

"It's just me and my dad," I said, looking down at the table."We've lived in this house for as long as I've been alive."

"You were born in this house?" she raised an eyebrow.

"Where do you think we live, in a cave?" I laughed. "Well, some of us do, but that's beside the point."

"What about your mom?" she asked.

I lowered my head. "She disappeared a long time ago, when I was ten. She was seen by a human and had totally vanished the next day."

"Oh my gosh," she gasped. "I'm so sorry you lost her that early in your life."

"Call me crazy," I said, "but I think she's still alive. Something deep inside of me is telling me that she's out there somewhere."

"That's wishful thinking," she sighed. "What was her name?"

"Her name was Audrey," I replied.

"Audrey?" she said with a look of surprise. "My mother's name is Audrey as well."

"Really?" I looked up, surprised as well. "Was her maiden name Kenmore, and was her hair black?"

"No," Scarlet replied, "she is a blond, and her maiden name was Haralson."

"Oh, she's still around?" I said, realizing what she meant.

"Yeah, she's the one who got me into school and into this house," she nodded.

"She sounds really nice," I said, trying to hide my sadness.

"She is," she said, looking down at me. "I'm sure your mother was nice to you as well."

"She was the nicest person I've ever met in my life," I sighed happily.

"What about me?" she asked.

I looked up at her again. "What about you?"

"Am I nice too?"

I thought about this for a while. She was a human bean, but she did everything that Dad had told me that beans don't ever do. She didn't capture me, she didn't hurt me, she didn't threaten me, nor did she even attempt to make me her pet. In fact, she had saved me from some would-be predators and fixed me up when I had hurt myself by accident. Very few Borrowers stuck their neck out like that for another Borrower, and no human bean ever did, at least not one who's ever been recorded. After another minute or two, I sighed deeply and then nodded.

"Yes, you are," I said. "For a human bean, you've made a heck of a first impression of them to me."

"Well, thank you," she smiled.

I was happy to hear that Connor trusted me, but then I felt a little uneasy for some reason. I then started fiddling with my hands. I noticed that Connor picked up on this, and cocked his brow.

"What's the matter?" he asked, noticing my wringing.

"I was just wondering," I replied, looking away from him for a moment.

"What were you wondering?" he asked. "Look at me, what are you wondering?"

I turned to face him, and I noticed that his arms were folded and he was giving me a curious look. That look made me even more nervous. "It's stupid, never mind."

"What's stupid?" he raised an eyebrow. "If it was really as stupid as you claim, you wouldn't have brought it up in the first place, would you?"

"You're right about that," I sighed. "There are two things I'm wondering, actually."

"Well, what are they?" Connor asked.

"The first thing is this," I responded. "Do you need to leave? I won't keep you, but I'm just curious."

"Well, I do eventually want to go home," he answered, "but my dad's going to be away for a long time."

"If I may ask, what's he doing?" I asked, out of curiosity.

"He's visiting my grandmother to give her some medicine for a sickness," he replied, "and it will take him a while to get to where she is."

"Where is she?" I asked. "I won't tell anyone, I'm just curious."

"She's halfway across the city," he replied.

"Wow, that's really far away!" I gasped. "That's almost 100 miles!"

"Yeah, it is," he said. "But before you get too distracted, what was that other thing that you were wondering about?"

"Well, now I'm kind of nervous about saying it," I replied, "but I… I wanted to ask if you would let me hold you."

"You mean… in your hand?" he gawked, glaring at my right hand as if it was on fire.

"I just said that it was stupid," I said, flustered, "so you can just forget about it. I'm sorry I even brought it up. It's ridiculous."

"It's not stupid," he shouted. "I just… wasn't expecting it. Beans aren't exactly the type to ask permission to us. They just snatch and grab and think that they can do whatever they want just because they're bigger than we are."

"Well, I'm not like that," I said. "I just… want to know what it's like."

"Well, that's… all right, I guess," he stammered, sounding just as unsure about this as I was. "Well, okay. Just be careful, please."

"Okay, if you say so," I said, and then laid my hand down on the table. If I wasn't paying close attention, I wouldn't have even felt it when Connor stepped onto my hand. He was so unbelievably light, and seeing how small he was in comparison to my hand gave me a new sense of scale with him. It made me more nervous than ever, and my hand began to twitch, almost toppling the Borrower.

"Does it really tickle that much?" he laughed up at me, but then he frowned when he noticed my frightened expression."What's up? You kinda look like you're going to be sick."

"Sorry," I said, shaking my head, "but I'm more than a little nervous right now. After all, I've never done anything like this before."

"Join the club, sister," he said, sitting down in the center of my palm. "You forget who you're talking to."

"Yeah, you've got a point there," I said, finally smiling. "Oh man, this is so weird."

"Well, calm down a bit," he said, stumbling a bit in my hand. "You're shaking like a leaf here."

"Sorry about that," I said, and then closed my eyes and took a big sigh. When I looked at Connor again, his hair was in a bit of a fritz, and he was brushing it back with his hands.

"Nice breeze there," he snickered.

"Oh, I'm sorry about that," I said. "I should really be less insightful around you, huh?"

"It's okay," he said back. "Your breath was actually quite nice."

I blushed a little at this. "Well, I think that maybe it's the new toothpaste talking."

"Toothpaste?" he asked. "What's that, I wonder?"

"Eh, it's kind of like soap but you use it on your teeth," I replied.

"Is there anything else weird about you beans that I should know?" he asked, laughing again.

"What I want to know is how you're so calm all of a sudden about all of this," I said. "Didn't you say that your kind was scared to death of us humans discovering your existence?"

"Well, of course we are," he said. "But you've changed every single thing I know about human beans – er, human beings – and now I don't know what to think anymore."

"Maybe that's another thing about humans that you should know," I said.

"What is?"

"That we're much more than what anyone says about us," I replied, smiling.

"You could be right about that," he smiled back, but then looked around my room. "So, this is your room?"

"Oh, yeah," I said, turning around to look at it myself. "I've lived here for the first few years of my life, then my folks and I moved out so our grandmother could have her own home and we could as well. But after my grandmother died, we took the house back and I moved back in so I could have my own home."

"Well, that's really interesting," Connor said. "What's with the bookcase?"

"What about it?" I asked, and then started to move towards the bookcase. I paused for a moment, and then looked at Connor. "It's okay if I move around, right?"

"You're okay," he replied, "just please don't go too fast, okay?"

"No problem," I smiled, and then got up out of my chair and walked over to the bookcase, making sure my new guest was secure in my hand. Once I got there, I was about to ask Connor what he meant by his words, but then saw what he meant. I looked at the sides of the bookcase, and saw some of the strange markings that I had seen on it before.

"Those markings are kind of like they were made by a borrower," he said, with a hint of wonder in his voice. "Have you seen them on there before today?"

"I saw them on there yesterday," I said, dumbfounded by what I saw. "I thought that I was just imagining things, but I guess that I wasn't. Did you or your family make these?"

"If I did, then do you think that I'd ask you?" Connor asked me. "I've never seen these markings before in my life, and my father made sure that me and my mom stayed as far away from this room of the house as we possibly could."

"How come?" I asked.

"You were still just a kid back then," he responded, "and young beans can be even more vicious than the grownups."

"Well, I can kind of see why," I said. "Little kids can be rather rough, especially with little things. Not that I think you're a 'thing', I know you're a person, Connor."

"I wasn't saying anything," he said, "but thank you for those words anyway."

"It's no trouble," I said. "So, if you or your dad didn't make these, then who did?"

"I have no idea," he said, but then paused when he looked at the marks again. "Wait a darn minute, something's not right here. Scarlet, set me down on the bookcase."

Nodding, I moved my hand to the top of the bookcase, and set it down, allowing Connor to jump off and onto the wood surface. He then dashed to the edge of the bookcase, and my hand instinctively went back to him, hovering by the edge of the bookcase. When he saw it coming, he stopped running, and looked back up at me.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"Sorry," I said, "but I thought you would fall if you went too fast."

"Eh, it's alright," he said. "I see why you did that, but give me a warning next time."

"Okay," I said, smiling sheepishly. "So, what did you see that got you so worked up?"

"It's these markings," he said, looking over the edge of the bookcase. "They're exactly the same distance away from each other horizontally and vertically."

"So what does that mean, exactly?" I asked.

"There's only one borrower in the world who'd make the effort to be so precise with their actions," I said, my heart almost stopping as I spoke. "That borrower is Audrey Kenmore Westinghouse."

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**A/N: I did it again, didn't I? :3 Sorry about that, but if I made it longer it would have to be a longer format from then on in. It gets better going in, and I am working on the next chapter as I type this. I hope you'll be patient, enjoy this chapter, and wait for my next installation.**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


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